About Natural Bridge of New England Waterfalls (Hudson Brook Chasm)
The Natural Bridge of New England really pertained to the natural bridge formation that was unique in that it was composed of marble. In fact, during our visit to this park, we noticed there were remnants of quarries to extract marble and export them during a time when the material was in high demand.
But in any case, the real reason why we’ve included this entry amongst the ensemble of New England Waterfalls was that Hudson Brook was responsible for carving out the marble-fringed Hudson Brook Chasm, and that this chasm contained several waterfalls deep within its gorge, including the man-made one spilling over a marble dam. So really, those waterfalls gave us to excuse to talk about the unusual geological formation while also showing off some of our photos of the gorgeous scenery to be found here, including the Autumn colors.
There was an admission fee of about $2 per vehicle, which was payable at the visitor center by the car park (see directions below). After surrendering the fee, we then walked a very easy path that initially traversed a lawn before going onto a well-developed boardwalk with some interpretive signs as well as points of interest besides most of the signs.
Amongst the initial sights were the marble dam forming the wide waterfall that was spilling over it as well as nice panoramic views over the site of a former marble quarrying operation, which happened to be bathed in Autumn foliage colors during our late afternoon visit.
Shortly thereafter, there was a bridge where we could look right down into the narrow but turbulent gorge while also looking upstream directly right at the marble waterfall as pictured at the top of this page. But then, the path continued a short distance downstream where we eventually saw some steps descending right towards one side of the opening of the natural bridge.
The trail would continue to go around the bridge before descending another series of steps with a view of the natural bridge from further downstream. But given the natural bridge’s position, it wasn’t easy to get the attractive shots of blue skies contrasting and proving in the photographs that it was indeed an attractive natural bridge.
There were also other historical remnants of the old quarrying operation such as some pipes spanning the narrow gorge as well. We let our daughter walk on her own while we kept a close eye on her, because the walks here were mostly fenced to protect her from the many dropoffs. So overall, we spent nearly an hour here and most of that time was spent leisurely checking out the sights and not so much hiking.
From the town of North Adams, MA, at the intersection of Veterans Memorial Dr / Union St (Route 2) and Eagle St (Route 8A), we headed east on Route 2 for about 0.7 miles, then we veered left to leave Route 2 and continue on Route 8 for about 0.5 miles.
At that point, we turned left to get onto McAuley Rd, and we followed this road to its end in 0.5 miles at the Natural Bridge State Park.
For context, North Adams was 21 miles (under 45 minutes drive) north of Pittsfield, 45 miles (over an hour drive) east of Albany, New York, 141 miles (under 3 hours drive) west of Boston, and 173 miles (3.5 hours drive) north of New York City.
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Left to right sweep from the footbridge fronting the Marble Dam and its waterfall. Video ends off by panning up and down the gorge to the dam.
Right to left sweep looking down into the gorge before looking up through opening of the marble natural bridge
Right to left sweep starting with the opposite side of the opening of the natural bridge then panning along the gorge until it ends at the staircase and pipes
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